ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- NSYNC's so-called PopOdyssey tour, which touches down at the SkyDome on Tuesday night, boasts some "great new toys," in the words of band member Chris Kirkpatrick.
He and the four other members of the Florida pop powerhouse -- Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone -- showed them off to about 45,000 hysterical, screaming fans at Ralph Wilson Stadium in this Buffalo suburb last Sunday night.
Those "toys" included hi-tech mechanical bulls, Velcro suits, trampolines, a video screen that miraculously transformed into a moving platform, and pulleys strung up 80 feet high, allowing NSYNC -- wearing sequined chaps, no less -- to fly over the audience.
"We just wanna do little things to make it entertaining," Fatone told Rolling Stone in the understatement of the year. "You don't wanna just go out there and sing the song. The last two tours, all we did was choreography."
NSYNC's stadium tour, whose explosions, fire bursts and general pyrotechnics have more in common with an amusement park ride or a top-notch video game, boasts a five-storey-high main stage and filmed sketches that cast NSYNC as everything from cowboys to silent film actors.
Also impressive are state-of-the-art flat speakers in stacked circular columns on either side of the stage and an array of lights that includes a spectacular, three-pronged rig that fans out over the top.
But, frankly, all the young girls on their feet last Sunday night seemed just as jazzed about Justin Timberlake's crewcut and JC Chasez's longer locks as they were about the hi-tech display that went on for one hour and 40 minutes.
That's what being a teen heartthrob is all about.
The fans also reacted strongly to NSYNC's energetic, verging-on-Chippendale dance manoeuvres. It didn't matter that some of the moves seemed recycled from last year's No Strings Attached tour.
Certainly, NSYNC's eight-piece band was superfluous, as were the three opening acts. The audience only booed when a Britney Spears video was played before the concert began. Spears is, of course, Timberlake's girlfriend.
"The decision to make something public was hers, and I gave her that option," Timberlake told Entertainment Weekly about their relationship. "It's not that she cared that people knew we were together, it's that she didn't want to seem like that girl who goes out with that guy. And I didn't want to seem like that guy who goes out with that girl."
In the PopOdyssey show, NSYNC initially emerge from a glass pyramid on a smaller satellite stage in the centre of the floor and then make their way to the larger main stage via a catwalk.
Last Sunday, there was a lot of traffic between the two stages, including one setup in which 20 fans were plucked out of the audience and armed with cameras to act as paparazzi while NSYNC walked down a red carpet to the new song Celebrity.
Speaking of which, NSYNC's new album of the same name doesn't hit stores until July 24.
Some might think the band is taking a big chance touring with so much new material without fans having heard it yet. Ten of the 18 songs played at the show were from Celebrity.
"This is the first time we've ever done that," Fatone told Rolling Stone. "We've been doing the same songs for the last tour and the tour before that, so people are gonna get a chance to hear some new stuff."
The first single, Pop, has been on the radio since May 15.
Co-written by NSYNC's breakout star Timberlake, the song definitely reflects the album's more urban-flavoured dance sound, judging from the rest of the new songs.
And the flipside is that NSYNC want to create buzz for Celebrity, which they hope will break the first-week sales record they set last year with No Strings Attached.
NSYNC, whose 2000 tour grossed $76.4 million -- garnering them the No. 2 spot on Pollstar's year-end survey of top tours -- seem to want to strike while the iron is hot.
After all, look what happened to the Spice Girls.
"Right now, if you disappear for too long, you kind of get forgotten," Bass told Entertainment Weekly. "Or someone will easily step in and go, 'Okay, I can do it!' "
For the time being, NSYNC are the only act doing an all-stadiums tour this year, and while only a handful have been instant sell-outs -- there are still tickets for the Toronto show -- they're topping last year's business.
Still to come is On The Line, a feature film starring Bass and Fatone that was shot in Toronto.
The trailer for the romantic comedy, co-starring Jerry Stiller, Dave Foley and Al Green, played several times leading up to the band's arrival last Sunday night and the crowd, naturally, went wild each and every time.
"Right now there's an insatiable audience for anything NSYNC," Jive Records boss Barry Weiss said in Entertainment Weekly.
"And we and the group are here to fill that demand."
